


The Biology of Angels

by triedunture



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Choking, Clothed Sex, Fake Character Death, Fight Sex, First Time, Forced to fight, Frottage, Fuck Or Die, Happy Ending, Hurt Crowley, M/M, Strong Aziraphale (Good Omens), dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:20:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22873129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triedunture/pseuds/triedunture
Summary: After Crowley and Aziraphale save the world and trick their respective sides, the archangels decide to enact a new kind of punishment: the angelic nuclear option, which will turn Aziraphale into a mindless killing machine bent on destroying Crowley.Or: Amok Time, but make it ineffable.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 52
Kudos: 517





	The Biology of Angels

The day after the world didn't end, an angel and a demon ambled out of the Ritz after a luxuriously long meal that had spanned lunch service straight on into dinner, and there on the most beautiful pavement in all of London, they lingered, not wanting their time together to end.

"Shall we go back to mine?" asked Aziraphale. His face took on a keen edge. "Or...would you rather we go back to yours?" 

Behind the protection of his dark glasses, Crowley blinked. The suggestion sounded to his ears a bit salacious, but he didn't want to assume—though he hoped he was right. 

"Why, angel," he said, teasing, "don't you know when humans say 'your place or mine' what they really mean is…?" His eyebrows made a little jaunt into his hairline.

"Yes," Aziraphale said with a quickness. "I do know." Those blue-grey eyes of his softened like butter left in the sunlight. "It's only, I feel I've wasted so much time already. I don't wish to waste any more. Not another moment. If I can help it." He clasped his hands to his chest; in another lifetime, it might have been in prayer. "Is that—is that all right?"

Crowley stood there—the two of them rather blocking the foot traffic on that busy porticoed piece of pavement—and stared at Aziraphale. He was not surprised, exactly. They'd been dancing around this _thing_ of theirs for—well, how long had the earth existed? But he'd thought somehow that they would need another few thousand years before Aziraphale was done circling the topic. It looked like they might be ahead of schedule, for once.

He removed his sunglasses. If any humans noticed the snake-like pupils or the bright bilious color of his eyes, he didn't care. He wanted Aziraphale to see them, surely brimming with all the love he carried for this bastard of an angel.

"That," he said, "is absolutely fine."

"Oh." Aziraphale's face transformed into the widest, brightest smile London had ever seen. "Oh, good." He reached out with both hands, palm up, and Crowley took them in his. 

They were holding hands, Crowley realized with an absurd urge to laugh. In broad daylight. Where anyone could see. And not out of fear, not clutching desperately like they had the previous evening on the long, tense bus ride back from Tadfield. They did it for the sheer pleasure of holding each other's hands, because they could.

Crowley was certain that all the love flowing from them would rattle the Ritz to its foundations. He could feel the earth tremble beneath his feet with the force of it. Nice trick, that, he thought in the instant before he caught Aziraphale's panicked stare.

"Angel?" It dawned on him that perhaps the trembling was real and perhaps it was not of their making.

"No, they can't," Aziraphale whispered. His face went as pale as milk. "We'd done it. We were supposed to be—"

And in a flash of ethereal light, an angel and a demon disappeared from the most beautiful pavement in London. 

The next thing Crowley knew, he was facedown on the ground, spitting out a mouthful of sand. He squinted at his surroundings: sand as far as the eye could see. It was the same desert he'd found himself in when he'd stopped time the other day. He could tell from the particular smell, the barest lingering scent of green. 

(Six thousand years ago, there had been walls and a gate, too, but like the Garden, that had all long since crumbled into dust. This was the spot where he'd first met a very strange angel, the place where Crowley had first considered that maybe there was more to his hellish existence than attempting to be Evil. Bit embarrassing, showing your cards like that, he'd thought when he'd brought Aziraphale and the boy straight here out of some home-seeking instinct, but it couldn't be helped.)

"Crowley." A gentle hand touched Crowley's shoulder, and he rolled onto his back with a groan to find Aziraphale hovering at his side. "Get up. Please, you have to run. Go, quickly, before—"

"What are you on about?" Crowley allowed Aziraphale to help him to his feet, but no further. "What's happening?"

"What's happening is, we've decided to try again," intoned a voice somewhere to his left. 

Crowley whirled, grimacing in the bright sunlight, and saw a whole passel of angels lined up on top of the sand dune: Michael, Sandalphon, Uriel, Gabriel, the biggest of pricks in all of creation. Crowley hated them for making Aziraphale so bloody miserable over the millennia, not to mention the bit with the hellfire. He squared his shoulders, ignoring how overheated he was in his black clothes, and tried to give off a menacing air.

"Oi, you lot—" he began, but was cut off by Aziraphale, who stepped in front of him like an angelic shield.

Stupid, lovely angel. 

"Our quarrel has nothing to do with this demon," Aziraphale said. "Send him back this instant; angelic matters should be kept between angels, surely."

"No," said Michael, which seemed to end that avenue of discussion.

"We can't figure out how you've become immune to the fire," said Sandalphon, "so we've been forced to come up with some other sort of punishment."

Crowley gave the assembled angels a dubious look over Aziraphale's shoulder. Heaven generally wasn't known for its imagination; neither was Hell, for that matter. Crowley and Aziraphale were probably the most imaginative of the bunch, he reckoned, and he doubted these jokers could cook up anything too clever.

Gabriel's smile oozed from him like hair oil. "If we can't destroy you, Aziraphale," he said, "there are other ways to achieve the, ah, intended effect." His starlet eyes flicked over to Crowley.

Crowley didn't have hackles, exactly, but if he did they would be raised. He could feel his poor excuse for a heart banging away inside his chest, an engine running on the fuel of his anger. Did these dickheads plan on threatening Aziraphale every day for the rest of eternity? Who did they think they were? Oooh, the mighty archangels. Made Crowley want to hiss.

"Have you considered buggering off?" he asked. 

No one paid him any mind, which only made him angrier. 

"This is preposterous," said Aziraphale to his angelic brethren. "I barely know this demon. Do you really think I care about what happens to him?" Turning to shoot a look at Crowley, Aziraphale's eyes went liquidy. _Sorry_ , he mouthed.

Crowley would've liked to say it didn't sting, this lie, but….

"Oh, please," said Uriel, drawing Aziraphale's attention again. "We know you've been consorting with this creature. We've known for, oh, a very long time."

Crowley could see Aziraphale's spine go rigid. 

"You have?" 

Something fluttered down in front of Crowley's face. He went a bit cross-eyed following its progress onto the sandy ground. He bent to pick it up. It was a photograph of Aziraphale and himself dressed in their Elizabethan finery, leaving the Globe. There was a shuffling noise in the air, and Crowley looked up to find dozens, hundreds more photographs falling from the sky like accusatory snowflakes. Each held an image of the two of them: laughing over wine, meeting on the top deck of a bus, strolling through the park. Centuries of evidence. 

Aziraphale plucked a photograph from the air and stared at it, emitting a fearful gasp.

"Hold on," said Crowley peevishly, "they didn't even invent cameras until a couple centuries ago."

Michael rolled her eyes. "They are metaphysical renderings of— Oh, it doesn't matter. The point is," she said, now focused on Aziraphale, "you weren't as careful as you imagined you were. We know what you've done." She sneered in Crowley's direction. "And with _him_ of all things."

"But we haven't—" Aziraphale began, then seemed to realize that sort of hair-splitting wasn't going to get him very far. He whirled to face Crowley again, his face a study in anguish, his arms full of the still-falling photographs. Like he was trying to hold onto the memories they contained. "Crowley—" 

In a quite literal flash, Aziraphale was transported to the top of the sand dune, standing at attention in front of the archangels, his arms now empty and lashed to his sides with cruel-looking bands of steel. His eyes found Crowley's in a panic. His whole body vibrated, like he was trying to move but couldn't. 

"Bastards!" Crowley began storming up the curve of the dune. "You can't just—"

"Crowley, don't," said Aziraphale, stopping him in his tracks. "Just run. Please."

Crowley shook his head. His teeth were grit hard enough to screech. "I'm not leaving you."

Aziraphale's breaths were coming fast. "You must. You don't know what they plan to do, you don't understand—"

"He doesn't?" Gabriel grinned ferociously, glancing between them. "Oh, I can't believe you didn't warn him, Aziraphale."

"Warn me about what?" Crowley demanded. 

Steepling his index fingers like some sodding professor of fuck-all, Gabriel paced a few steps back and forth in the sand. "There is a mechanism," he said, "if you want to call it that, inside every angel. A failsafe, if you will. A kill switch. Pretty ingenious, actually, the way it's done."

Gabriel said some other things too, but Crowley tended to stop listening when archangels got to pontificating; it was one of the major reasons he'd ended up hanging with the wrong crowd when he was still a member of the Heavenly host. Lucifer had been a talker, too, of course, but he was a judicious self-editor and tended to be rather pithy. Crowley's attention span appreciated it.

While Gabriel kept banging on with his self-important what-have-you, Crowley's gaze strayed back to Aziraphale. He tried to communicate a wordless calm to the shaking angel. _It's going to be all right_ , he said with just his eyes. 

Aziraphale just swallowed, his own eyes brimming with tears.

"And so," Gabriel said, drawing Crowley's attention again. Seemed to be wrapping up, thank goodness. "Because of your rebellion, it was agreed that after the great schism, our kind would need insurance. We can't have angels running amok. Even one is too dangerous. So when I give the word," he pointed at Aziraphale, "your friend here will do exactly what he was programmed to do. And he won't stop until you're dead."

Crowley drew back. "Wait, what?"

"Dead," Gabriel repeated. "Discorporated, smote, whatever." He waved a hand through the air. "Your empty, broken body will be here on Earth, but you, the Demon Crowley, well…."

"You'll return to Hell," said Sandalphon. "And I don't think your former masters will be keen on assigning you a new corporation."

"You'll be trapped there for all time," Michael said with a smug look, "while Aziraphale will be trapped here on Earth."

"Alone," Uriel added for good measure. 

Gabriel held up his hands in celebration. "The perfect punishment, right?"

Crowley stared up at them in wide-eyed fury, baring his teeth. "Aziraphale would never hurt me," he said.

"He won't have a choice," Michael intoned. 

Crowley's eyes slid to Aziraphale in time to watch a tear slide down his pale cheek. He struggled against his bindings, but they wouldn't budge. "You don't have to do this. Please, you can't," he said, twisting his head to speak to his captors. Then, spinning again, "Crowley, get away from here, go!"

Crowley stayed rooted to the spot, ankle-deep in sand and photographs. He couldn't leave. Not now.

Michael leaned close to Aziraphale's ear and spoke a single word. It was in a language Crowley had forgotten, the angelic tongue of Heaven—not that Enochian bullshit, dreamed up by mediums high as kites on cocaine. The real thing, with all the power of Heaven behind its syllables.

Crowley watched as the word entered Aziraphale and turned him into something else.

Those frightened blue-grey eyes went white. The beloved pinched face went hard as stone. Aziraphale's struggles ceased, and the steel that had bound him fell away in a heap. Righteous light poured from his mouth, which opened in a terrible scream. 

"Okay." Gabriel rubbed his hands together. "Now it gets fun."

Aziraphale lunged at Crowley, hurtling down the dune faster than anything on Earth should move. There was a thin spot in the fabric of reality through which Crowley caught a glimpse of Aziraphale as he must appear in the eyes of God: a burning wheel studded with a thousand fiery eyes, all lined in gold. Then reality shifted back and Crowley saw the Aziraphale of this world, but he was still all wrong. Aziraphale was supposed to be tartan and linen and brown leather and gentle hands; now he was bent on destruction, reduced to his original purpose as a warrior of Heaven. 

Crowley was still taking in this nightmarish change in Aziraphale when they collided, Aziraphale's arms wrapping around his waist, the both of them tumbling arse-over-teakettle across the sand. 

There was a brief scuffle in the confusion of the landing, and Crowley managed to spring out of Aziraphale's grasp and onto his feet. He put his hands up, not battle-ready, but in a gesture of peace. Demon though he may've been, Crowley was no fighter, and he certainly didn't want to fight the one person who meant everything in the universe to him.

"Aziraphale," he said softly, "I know you're in there." 

Blank white eyes stared up at him for only a half a second, and then Aziraphale, with another horrific scream, lunged at Crowley yet again. 

Crowley scrambled out of range of Aziraphale's fists. "This always works in films," he grunted. "Aziraphale? Listen to my voice. Come on, fight it." 

There was no hint of recognition on Aziraphale's face, nothing that might indicate he could even hear Crowley, let alone wrest back his control. He only advanced as Crowley retreated. Crowley's black Chelsea boots dragged through the scattered photographs. He snatched one from the hot sand. 

"Look, remember this?" He held up the picture and pointed at their two forms seated at their usual table in the cafe of the British Museum. "You had that chocolate thing, the cake, what's it called? Devil's food! Had a good laugh over that, didn't we?"

With a snarl, Aziraphale batted the photograph from Crowley's hand. 

"Right. Not that one, then. Look, how about this?" He scooped up another from the ground and studied it frantically. A rainy night in Soho, the two of them walking side by side, Aziraphale lifting his pale umbrella higher to keep Crowley dry. "Uh, erm, when was this? Late 1960s judging by my haircut." He held up the photograph like a shield in front of his face. "You had a thing for cravats then. Would never admit it, but I missed them when you switched to bow ties."

Aziraphale gave a rumbling growl and grabbed Crowley's wrist in a crushing grip. The photograph fell to the ground. Crowley watched it go in despair. He looked back up to see that familiar face masked with an unfamiliar rage.

"Angel, it's me. Don't you remember?"

Clearly, he did not. 

Aziraphale squeezed Crowley's wrist until the pain made him go to his knees. Then Aziraphale was on top of him, pinning him to the ground by both wrists, bracketing Crowley's torso with his powerful legs. 

"Okay, all right. Listen," Crowley said. He looked around wildly and saw the archangels watching them from on high, a good distance away. He dropped his voice to a whisper and turned back to Aziraphale. "If you can hear me, I want you to know I don't blame you, yeah? I know this isn't you." He shifted under the heavy, harsh weight of Aziraphale's body. Damn it all. If it weren't for those archangel pricks, they might be in a similar position in very different circumstances. 

Aziraphale gave a battle cry and went for Crowley's throat. Crowley's hands flew to stop him, and they grappled like that, fingers tangling.

"I'm sorry, angel," Crowley croaked. His feet tried to find purchase in the shifting sand, but the best he could do was kick little furrows. "I'm sorry we never got to go back to your place, or mine. I'm sorry I never got a chance to show you how much I—" He grunted, losing his grip on Aziraphale's murderous hands. 

Aziraphale's fingers slipped through his and wrapped around his gasping throat. The angel gave a wild cry of triumph. His hips ground down against Crowley, and even through the pain and the terror, Crowley could feel— There, in the close crush of their bodies— 

His eyes flew wide. Aziraphale was hard. Achingly hard against him. 

A million thoughts ran through Crowley's brain—foremost that Aziraphale must have really been planning ahead if he'd manifested genitalia before they'd left the Ritz, because he certainly hadn't had any when Crowley had taken his corporation for a spin (not that Crowley had meant to pry, exactly, but it was one of those things he just couldn't help but notice). He also considered that this reaction was merely a byproduct of Aziraphale's overriding bloodlust. And somewhere in the swirl of all those thoughts, an idea occurred.

With a burst of strength, Crowley shoved at Aziraphale until they flipped over, Crowley astride him now. They wrestled in a haphazard way, sand flying everywhere and getting into uncomfortable places. Crowley leaned down so his nose nearly touched Aziraphale's.

"S'gonna be fine, angel," he said. "Just let me—" 

The vicious point of Aziraphale's elbow connected with Crowley's face, and Crowley could taste the blood in his mouth where his lip had split. 

Crowley blinked the stars from his eyes. Fuck, that hurt. 

They rolled again, Aziraphale atop him now, bearing down with all his weight. The heavy shape of his cock rubbed against Crowley through their trousers, and despite his impending doom, Crowley's body responded in kind. His face burned hot as they rutted against each other like animals, Aziraphale snarling and snapping at him.

"Come on, angel," Crowley said, lifting his hips to grind up against him. "That's it. Feels good, doesn't it?"

Those cold, calculating eyes stared down at him, not losing their dangerous edge. Aziraphale got a hand in his hair, gave it a yank. Crowley hissed but didn't fight it. He went lax under the angel, as pliant as could be. A prey animal showing its belly. 

"Go ahead," he whispered. "It's all right. Your body remembers me, doesn't it? Remembers wanting this." He ignored the eyes of the archangels on them, tried to focus on Aziraphale. He was in there somewhere, Crowley knew it. He licked hot blood from his lower lip.

"It's okay," Crowley said, low in the scant air between them. "Do what you need to do, angel."

Aziraphale's fingers tangled in the skinny scarf and the chain necklace that Crowley wore around his neck. He pulled at them until their mouths were less than an inch apart. For a dizzying moment, Crowley thought he might finally get a kiss. But Aziraphale only fucked himself against his body and twisted the scarf and necklace around his fist, cutting off Crowley's air supply, strangling the life from him.

Crowley clawed at his throat, trying and failing to get his fingers into the space between his skin and the two ligatures. His vision swam; he could only see Aziraphale's furious face above him, feel his leaking prick rutting against his own. It was like some horrible dream, erotic and terrifying.

He choked on Aziraphale's name. Lifted a weak hand to touch his face. Felt, at last, the angel's hot release against his hip, soaking into his jeans. 

Crowley followed him, coming in waves, shaking apart beneath him even as his empty lungs gasped for air. A body couldn't take it, not even a miraculously inclined one. Just before Crowley's snake eyes rolled up into his head, he thought he saw the thick white of Aziraphale's eyes clear a bit, making way for that beautiful greyish blue.

Oh, good, Crowley thought just before he stopped breathing. 

* * *

Aziraphale came back to himself as if waking from a deep sleep. He was hot, he realized, baking in the desert sun. Sand had worked its way into his clothes and shoes, which he did not care for one bit. He was a bit damp, whether from sweat or—

He blinked. Crowley was on the ground beneath him. And Aziraphale's hands were….

He dropped Crowley's scarf and necklace, gasping at the bright red marks they'd left along Crowley's neck. His face was much too pale, his lips nearly blue, and his features were too slack. Aziraphale had never seen him so still, not even in sleep. 

"Crowley?" he whispered. He pressed his ear to the black-clad chest. Not a sound, not a bit of movement. "Oh, dear Lord, no."

He gathered Crowley's body in his arms, held him close. Rocked him there in the sand. Wept quietly into his warm, red hair. "No, no, no, please."

A shadow fell over him. Aziraphale did not need to look up to know the archangels loomed there; their horrid satisfaction was palpable.

"That's that, then," said Sandalphon lightly.

Michael laughed. "I'll be glad not to be constantly checking up on you anymore. We're happy to let you rot here."

"Enjoy eternity on Earth, Aziraphale," said Gabriel.

They left with a whoosh of wings and a frisson of ozone, but Aziraphale didn't note their departure. He was too busy wiping the blood from Crowley's mouth with his thumb.

"My dear," he said, touching the cooling skin, "don't leave me here alone. I can't bear it. I can't—"

He buried his face against Crowley's shoulder and planned never to resurface. Let the desert bury them together under a sandstorm, he reasoned. What was the point of staying here in the mortal world if he didn't have Crowley?

A puff of air tickled Aziraphale's ear. The sandstorm was starting early, he thought distantly.

"Mpmrph," said the sandstorm, which was odd. "They gone?"

"Crowley!" Aziraphale sat up to stare into Crowley's very beautiful, very much alive face. "But how—?"

"Cold-blooded," Crowley said with a shrug. "Thought I could get away with a quick brumation. It's like hibernation, only snake-ish." He looked around the empty dunes. "Were they fooled?"

"Were they—!?" A smidgen of the prior rage came over Aziraphale's face, and gave Crowley a shove back into the sand. " _I_ was fooled, you slippery serpent! I thought you were dead!" 

"Well, I wasn't," Crowley pointed out. "You're welcome."

"Oh, of all the ridiculous—" Aziraphale paused in his ranting to pluck at the stained, damp front of his trousers. "Erm, did we…? In front of everyone?"

Crowley cupped a palm over his own stain. "'Fraid so, angel. I think they thought it was all part of the fight, though, if that helps keep your pride intact." He looked a little contrite at last. "Sorry, I just didn't know how else to snap you out of it. Figured a 'little death,'" he waggled his eyebrows, "might be enough to get you off the warpath. Worked, didn't it?"

"I suppose so." Aziraphale stopped plucking fretfully at his trousers and heaved a sigh. "Not how I'd envisioned our first time making love, if I'm honest."

Crowley made a considering noise, massaging his abused neck with his fingers. "Don't think it counts. You weren't yourself."

Aziraphale gave him a grateful look, then touched his fingertips gently to Crowley's neck, healing the marks there in an instant. A snap of Crowley's fingers and their clothes were clean and sand-free. 

"Shall we go home?" he asked.

"Please," said Aziraphale. Then, chewing on his lip, "Er, which home do you mean?"

"D'you mean your place or mine?" Crowley's smile lit up his eyes. "Doesn't matter to me, angel." His hand came up to rest against Aziraphale's hot face. "Long as you're there."

"Did we kiss?" Aziraphale asked urgently. "When we were—fighting." 

"Nope," Crowley said. "Why?"

Aziraphale—the actual Aziraphale, all dust-colored hair and soft hands and kind eyes—bumped his nose alongside Crowley's in a silent plea before the demon, who was very accommodating when it came to a particular angel, took the hint and brought their mouths together at last. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> You can find me [@triedunture](https://twitter.com/triedunture) on Twitter.


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